


The Truth About Heroes

by SeanzahAngel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Crime, Cryokinesis, Cybernetics, Diverse Characters, Earth, Electrokinesis, Fighting, Fire, Humans, Ice, M/M, Many POC, More Powers to Come, Not Cheesy I Promise, Robots, Strong Female Characters, Teleportation, Torture, Villains, Violence, diversity, force fields, geokinesis, planning, pyrokinesis, super heroes, super speed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-04 03:40:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6639928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeanzahAngel/pseuds/SeanzahAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world much like our own, the people have given their favor to a group of heroes named The Vanguard that are sworn to protect a mega-city of millions from the villains that vow to control it. It is with these two groups that Chris, codename Porter, finds himself in the middle of a war. Within this war he finds an unexpected ally and discovers the reality behind it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thanks for taking interest in my story. I'm a new writer here at AO3 (even though I've been a member for a few years), and I thought that this would be a good story to start out with. I've written a couple of stories before for Wattpad, but I like this site better. I know the beginning of the story is rocky because I wasn't sure how I wanted to change it, but if you read to the end I think you'll find it to your liking! 
> 
> So, I won't bother you any longer. Read, and tell me what you think please! :)

\---------

“Chris, you’re going to make us late for our two o’clock class!” A male voice called from across the apartment. He was right. They had ten minutes to get to their class or they were going to be late for the third time that week.

“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry! Just one second Anthony!” Chris shouted back before returning his attention to what he was doing. “You wouldn’t want someone to incinerate us on our way to school, now would you?” He muttered under his breath to himself. He tried to speed up what he was doing, but it takes time to recharge your powers when you stay out until five AM.

One hand was placed over an outlet next to his bed while the other touched a generator underneath. Electricity poured into his body through his fingers, up his arms, and into his chest where it would circulate everywhere else to empower his abilities. If anyone else were in the room with him, they would see a blue light pulsing slowly underneath his clothes, a visual testament to how charged up he was. A bright pulsing light would be a high charge while a dim light would be a low charge. Unfortunately the light wasn’t very bright.

A hard knocking on his door compelled him to turn around despite the fact it was locked in two different ways. “Chris! Hurry the hell up!” Anthony was definitely angry, and if it wasn’t for their long history of being best friends Chris was sure he would have been left behind several minutes ago.

Chris bit his lip and decided it was better to just go in the long run. Being late to their class for the third time in a week meant they’d be docked 50 percent of their overall attendance points for that week. Being docked points for being late was the reason they were both sitting at a high C. They couldn’t afford to be late again.

Chris reluctantly lifted his hands from the power sources and slipped his backpack over his right shoulder. He crossed the room in just three strides to unlock and open the door and step out into the cramped hallway of their small three bedroom apartment. Anthony sighed happily at the sight of his roommate before throwing open the door to their apartment and half-running down the hallway to the stairs. Chris followed him after closing and locking the apartment door, his pace a bit faster than his friend’s to catch up.

“What takes you so long to get ready in the morning, Chris? I have never understood that. You get up at noon, take a 20 minute shower, shave and brush your teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, and then for half an hour you just sit in your room. What’s the deal?” This was one question of several similar variations that Anthony threw at Chris every day before getting in the car to go to their class. This particular variation had Anthony looking at Chris like he had committed a sex scandal.

He simply shrugged. “I like to read and sometimes study. Today I was reading a really good book and I was in the middle of a really good chapter. I had to finish it first.” He lied, but it was a decent lie all the same. Chris was always reading when he wasn’t studying or doing homework or fighting villains as Porter, but Anthony didn’t know about that part of him.

“So you make us late and get our points docked almost every week because you’re reading? Chris, what the hell. That’s stupid. Just bring the book along with you, or read during class. Your ‘reading’ is dropping my GPA. My parents aren’t happy. They’re threatening to stop paying for my car insurance.” Anthony grumbled, glancing at Chris every so often as he drove. This was new, though. His parents had never threatened to stop paying for his insurance.

Chris sighed, trying to think of something to say that could console his friend without making up a lie or creating a promise he couldn’t keep. “I’m sorry, man. I’ll try and get ready sooner, I guess. And I’ll try and stop reading in the morning.” He stole a look at Anthony. He seemed a little calmer, but he was definitely still angry.

The rest of the drive to the university was quiet until they got into the parking lot. Ahead of them one of the many buildings of the university was up in flames, forcing a large group of college students to vacate the area. It wasn’t until a small explosion rocked the car that Anthony even realized what was happening. He must have been caught up in his own thoughts to notice, but the situation soon had his undivided attention.

Both of the students got out of the car as another explosion of a significantly larger size shook the ground beneath their feet. The group of students that were running away from the building took cover as bits of debris crashed around them, though it looked like no one was injured. The group continued to run until they got to the parking lot where Chris and Anthony stood frozen in shock. “What the absolute fuck!” Anthony shouted as a figure catapulted from the ground into the sky, only to be brought back down by another figure that had been hidden by the clouds before.

Such things weren’t very strange in a general sense. The news was always filled with stories of heroes and villains fighting in cities large and small alike, sometimes even the deaths of certain heroes would take over the channels. After hearing it and reading it in the news, it’s common to become numb to those things. However, hearing and reading it are very different from living it. Anthony had never even seen a battle with his own eyes, let alone stand only 100 yards away from one. Chris, of course, was much more used to it.

“Hey, at least now we have an excuse to be late.” Chris said to no one in particular, but Anthony heard him and spun around to face him.

A look of sheer horror was painted plainly across his face. He was afraid, that was obvious, but there was also the look that deer get just before they sprint off. He wanted to run very far away from there. “Chris, I think it’s Pyron.” He said with a trembling voice almost too quiet to hear. Pyron was one of the more major villains. He could control fire and produce explosions out of thin air. He was definitely a cause to be afraid.

“Hey it’s okay, Anthony. Take the car back to the apartment. I’m sure the professor would understand that explosions are a good reason not to go to class. I’ll be back later. I just have to check on my cousin and turn in a paper for another class.” He spoke slowly and a little louder than he normally would to make sure the message was received. Chris didn’t really have a cousin, but he used them as a scapegoat quite often in similar situations. The story is simple: Chris’ cousin was a freshman in college now and they absolutely hated each other’s guts, which is why Anthony never sees him, but his father would skin him alive if anything ever happened to him because Chris’ uncle was a rich man that paid for their house and his son was his pride and joy.

Anthony nodded slowly and turned to get back into the car. It was only a few short moments before he was racing out of the parking lot. Sighing deeply as if he had just dodged a bullet, Chris turned back to the fight. He started taking off the top layer of his clothes to reveal a tight fitting blue shirt and a pair of blue sweats. It wasn’t a costume, it was just a way for him not to be recognized by that day’s clothes if he was caught on the news. The only extra thing he wore was a pair of black goggles that looked more like sunglasses than anything else, but they covered his eyes completely and were fastened tightly around his head and were completely dark on all sides so his eyes couldn’t be seen from the outside. However, Chris could see like he wore nothing over his eyes at all.

After laying his clothes to the side to pick up later, Chris began to make his way for the battle. There was no doubt that the number of villains and heroes had increased since the first sighting, which meant that there would be others like Chris around. Heroes and villains like Chris are known as Neutrals. They take no definitive sides, even if they consistently fought for one side. There were several unspoken rules that all Neutrals followed. Never take any glory, never harm normal people, and never claim any territory. Territory was determined loosely through battles. If the heroes lose a battle on their territory, it’s then the villain’s territory, but it affects nothing other than the morale of the people and both teams.

One moment Chris was walking towards the fight with his inner light pulsing gently, and the next moment he was on the roof of a building next to the burning one, crouching down to catch up on what he missed. Pyron and another villain, Electron were attacking a hero hidden from view by the smoke of the fire. Electron could manipulate electricity and implode at will, sucking in matter around him in a vortex to then explode so that everything that was sucked in violently shoots out at random with waves of electricity. Electron and Pyron with their powers combined made for a fearful team.

Behind them was a third, lesser known villain named Crush who was gifted with super strength, stamina, and durability. He could withstand quite a lot of punishment and was no doubt there to soak up any damage Pyron and Electron would take just by being in the way. The three of them wore their own customized outfits. Pyron dressed modestly in a dark red suit made of a material that could withstand his flames and explosions. It brightened up the dark brown skin of his Mexican heritage around his hands, but his long black hair seemed to make his face lighter. 

Electron wore a light blue outfit with white lightning bolts emblazoned all around, made of the same material as Pyron’s outfit. He wore a thin metal chest piece that covered his entire torso and was painted to look like a black hole, and thin chains wrapped around his arms and legs. The garb made his white skin even whiter, and his spiked dark gray hair didn’t help.

Crush wore nothing but black leather pants, a pair of black leather combat boots, and two shoulder guards, all studded with extremely sharp metal spikes. He wore the outfit simply to create fear, but even without it he’d still be more frightening than any villain by looks. He was a titan of a man, ripped all around his body, veins popping without him even flexing. Several extremely vivid tattoos decorated his lightly tanned skin, the largest of which was a black skull on his chest with smoke coming out of its eye sockets.

For a while Chris didn’t know what to do until the hidden hero charged Pyron straight on. As she came into view he could see that it was Winter, a woman with fair ebony skin and long braids that reached to her waist with several bright silver rings on every braid. She controlled ice and could generate it from nothing and could drop the temperature in an enclosed area to well below zero in a matter of seconds. She used her body when her powers had no use, throwing powerful and precise punches where they counted and would dodge out of the way with great speed. She dressed well for the fight, white leather protecting all the important areas of her body with thin layers of Kevlar underneath to block any projectiles. 

Behind her stood another hero named Jericho. He could control energy in such a way that, after absorbing it for a short while, he could convert it to increase his strength, speed, and agility, or he could turn it into powerful blasts invisible to the naked eye. He was named Jericho because he’s known for bringing down entire buildings with such blasts. He dressed in a loose brown outfit made of wool and silk, obviously not very worried about taking any damage since he predominantly fought from a distance and blocked projectiles with his energy. The clothes matched the smooth light brown skin of his East Asian birth.

As Winter charged Pyron, Chris appeared behind Electron and punched him in the back, just inches above the tail bone. The villain whirled wildly and lashed out at him, but Chris was suddenly several yards away, a smile stretching slowly across his face. In the distance he could see Jericho give him a curious look, but didn’t break away from absorbing the energy around him.

Electron responded by making his way towards the teleporter with electricity crackling in his hands. He raised a hand to fire a bolt of electricity at him, but Chris was again several yards away from where he had been. Electron gave a snicker dry of humor as another bolt of electricity came for Chris, but again he was out of the way in the blink of an eye, though this time closer to the villain. With each bolt that came for him, the teleporter came closer and closer until he was only a mere two feet away from Electron, to which the villain reacted by creating a wide arc of electricity in front of him and shot it out at the Neutral. Chris was behind Electron before the electricity could reach him and punched the villain in the same spot, and again on his sides below the rib cage, then teleported on top of his building where he would be out of sight.

It didn’t take long for the electricity manipulator to forget the boy and turn back to Winter, but by that time she had already pulled Pyron quite a distance away from the initial area, allowing Jericho to begin separating Crush even further. As Jericho began moving around Electron to avoid confrontation with him, he was sending blasts of energy at their defensive man. Each blast sent Crush a step backwards as he took the entirety of the force of each blast with his body, but it didn’t seem to be doing any real damage.

When Electron realized angrily what was happening, Chris took that short window of his frustration to teleport behind him and sent a flurry of punches into his backside. Electron pivoted around but didn’t even catch a glimpse of Chris, as he was already behind the villain again and attacked him a second time. A pulse of electricity suddenly burst from the man’s body, catching Chris off guard and sent him flying backwards. However, before he could land, he teleported towards the parking lot. He took cover behind a smaller building to gather himself.

Looking down, he noticed that his inner pulse had grown slightly brighter than before even after the use of his powers. “Of course, you idiot,” Chris whispered to himself. “Electron controls electricity, which energizes your powers. It only makes sense he would be able to energize you. Dumbass.” With this knowledge in mind, he wouldn’t need to be quite as evasive as he had been. Still, if he simply let the villain energize him, he would quickly catch on to the Neutral becoming more powerful and the pulse within his body growing brighter. 

He glanced around the corner to find that Electron was looking for him, muttering fowl words about having to fight a teleporter. While the villain bent over a fallen wall to look behind it, Chris teleported behind him to give him a strong kick in the backside, sending the villain sprawling over the wall. Then he was in front of him, grabbing his head and slamming it into the ground. He heard the satisfying crack of rock beneath bone, but he knew the villain wasn’t harmed much. He took no time in teleporting a short distance away to await the actions of his opponent, not sure what to do.

It was when Electron started to rise from where he lay that Chris noticed a blur of black appear from behind him, racing past both the teleporter and the electricity manipulator to stop behind Jericho. The black blur was a young man around Chris’ age, slim, with only the bronze skin of his hands and face visible. The rest was covered by a black material Chris couldn’t put a name to, but looked to be very durable. At first he thought the black blur was on their side, but that belief soon disappeared when he sent a powerful punch into the back of Jericho’s neck, two more in the small of his back, and another just above the tail bone, then ran back from where he had come from behind Chris with lightning fast speed.

Electron was back on his feet by then, and Jericho was looking at the two with a hot fury in his eyes. He took Chris for the one that assaulted him, as if all his actions of helping the two heroes accounted for nothing. He could tell the man would like nothing more than to attack the teleporter with all of his energy, but Crush had begun returning the blows. A sharp left hook caught the hero by surprise, followed by a punch below the ribs in his side as he stumbled, but as he sent a kick to the midriff, Jericho used his energy to blow the oncoming foot back down, then quickly stood up to block two more punches.

Electron was moving quickly towards Chris to catch him unawares, but the teleporter snapped himself out of the distraction and appeared behind his opponent. He was about to make an attack, but the villain anticipated the move and whirled around, sending a powerful arc of electricity into his torso. The level of power Chris absorbed from the attack was more than all of the electricity he absorbed that morning from drawing from the light socket and the backup generator under his bed. This caused the pulsing light within him to grow considerably brighter, which the villain took notice to right away. His sharp silvery blue eyes narrowed at the sight, and a hand snatched a dagger out from a thin layer of leather on his thigh.

He slashed downwards with the weapon aimed at the center of the pulsing light just below his heart, but Chris teleported back to the top of the building from before and retreated into the shadows. It wasn’t uncommon for villains to kill people, but it had never happened to Chris before. It would take a few moments to recuperate from the shock.

While he did, he peered over the edge of the building to find Winter retreating from a powerful tornado of flames that nearly reached the clouds. She slowed it slightly with a wide path of ice and cooling the air around it, but it seemed to be unstoppable. Jericho and Crush seemed equally matched in their fight, with each attack of theirs having an equal amount of effect, which is to say hardly any at all. Electron realized he would be more use elsewhere, and so he moved to assist Crush.

Chris looked over the rest of the campus to see another building sinking into the earth below, which could only be Sinkhole, another well-known villain that was obviously known for creating large sinkholes to suck up entire buildings and large amounts of people. He teleported to the building next to it just in time to see a pair of students being swallowed up with the rest of the building. Without even thinking about it he teleported down, grasped both of their arms and teleported back out to the nearby building. To him, the action was nothing, but to them it would be extremely painful. Like being electrocuted by an electric fence. They screamed when they materialized on the roof and immediately tore themselves away from him to run to the far side of the building.

Chris wasn’t really worried about their reactions, though. He was used to people hating him because of the pain when teleporting them, even if their lives were being saved. He turned his attention to Sinkhole, who was preparing to sink another nearby building. That was when he saw the black blur once more move in just as a lesser known hero made their own appearance. The black blur spun around them, attacking at every opportunity. The hero, who Chris didn’t even recognize, was spinning around in place to try and find the source of the blur. The teleporter thought they would never find it, but with a swift movement of their fist, the black blur was flying across the newly made battlefield towards Chris’ building.

He teleported down close to him to get a good look at him, since he hadn’t gotten a good look at him before. The young man had bright hazel eyes and small dark freckles spotting his cheeks and his short cropped black hair had a lightning bolt shaved into the side of his head. It was obvious his ability was super speed, but the outfit he wore didn’t give it away like some hero and villain costumes did. He wasn’t known to Sinkhole or the other villains, nor by any of the heroes. He was definitely a Neutral like Chris.

“Who are you?” Chris heard himself ask as he slowly walked forward.

“No one.” The black blur said before he sped away and around Chris to get behind him, but Chris teleported behind the blur, and a short play of powers ensued until the blur stopped moving in front of the teleporter. “Neat power.”

“You too. I haven’t seen you before. Where do you come from?” He asked, but the blur didn’t answer. He only moved closer. “Have you only recently gotten your power?”

“I’ve had my power all my life. I come from Chicago.” He spoke quickly, his speed influencing even his speech. “Your turn. Who are you?”

Chris teleported behind him, and then again as he turned around. “I’m Porter. I teleport. I come from here. Been here all my life.” He teleported behind again, but this time the blur didn’t turn around. Chris smiled at the reaction before teleporting back in front. “Why are you helping the villains? Are you a villain?”

The blur returned the smile and ran around the teleporter then stopped right behind him to speak in Chris’ ear. “Because I can.” When Chris turned around, the blur was behind him again in his ear. “Because it’s fun.” Then he raced around to face Chris head on. “Maybe tomorrow I won’t. Maybe the villains will fight better than the heroes tomorrow. Maybe I won’t fight at all.”

Chris frowned at the reply. It wasn’t unheard of that people don’t take sides, but people always leaned towards one side more than the other. Someone that fought completely for the rush was rare. He didn’t express his thoughts on the matter though. He was sure the young man new exactly what Chris was thinking. Instead he asked, “What do I call you, then? Blur? Black Blur? Speedy? Flash?”

With a chuckle the blur was behind Chris and then was spinning around him even quicker than before. “I like Blur. Call me Blur.” He said before hurtling off to the hero that had begun attacking Sinkhole. They exchanged a series of attacks between themselves, and then Blur was gone. Then he was back again to fire off a few more attacks. Then he was gone again.

Chris wondered why he fought the way he did. It was possible their power was energized by something else like his own, but he wouldn’t assume in the event he would have to face him in a real fight.

He was about to jump in to assist the hero in attacking Sinkhole, but was stopped before he could teleport by a bright purple energy field surrounding him. He raised a brow at the sight of it, knowing he could get out of it easily, but when he tried to teleport he found himself stuck. The light inside of him pulsed frantically as he attempted several times to teleport out of the dome, but stopped when he realized it wasn’t going to work. He pressed his hands against the surface and quickly drew them back when he was greeted with a painful jolt.

The teleporter turned to see a woman dressed in purple with purple jewels sparkling from the sun and fire around them on her clothes. Both hands were outstretched in the direction of the dome, giving away the fact that the energy field was controlled through her hands. She then began to slowly clench her hands together, causing the energy field to shrink in size. There already wasn’t a lot of space inside of the dome, but as it shrunk he found that it was just inches away from his body now. He wasn’t sure what would happen if it closed completely around him, but he didn’t like the way she was looking at him while she made the dome smaller. As if he were going to be the main course in a lavish dinner.

However, as the dome started to touch his skin and pain began shooting all over his body, he spied a black blur speeding around the dome, pausing for only a fraction of a second to touch it before speeding off towards the woman in purple. He stopped behind her just long enough to see the flicker of a shadow of doubt linger on his features before the two of them made eye contact. Then he was a blur once more as he sped around in front of the woman and she was on the ground in an instant. Her hands dropped with her so that Chris was free. Then he was in front of her as well.

He sent out a quick punch at the girl, but it was stopped by a purple force field closely hugging her form. She lashed out at Chris with a punch of her own, but he was behind her before the attack could make contact, then several yards away. When she found him, she raised her hands at him, but he was gone before the energy dome could be made around him again.

Blur found him on top of the building beside the first one that was sunk and stood next to him so they could both watch the woman in purple search frantically for the two of them. “You’re welcome.” He said, glancing over at him from the corner of his eye.

Chris snorted and turned to him. “I had it completely under control.” He joked, but the humor was a miss on the other Neutral. “I’ve never seen her before either. Do you know her?”

“Nope. But I have seen her once before. In St. Louis. She used to be small time, but it looks like she’s moving up in the world.” He nodded at her as she made her way over to Sinkhole. They exchanged a few words in between fighting the hero and then she moved away, making her way to Pyron and the other villains.

Chris stole a glance at Blur as he watched her jog over to Pyron, shouting something they couldn’t hear from where they were at. Pyron waved her off with a hand to go somewhere else as he fought Winter, which was now a fight more equal than before, as Winter had created several different nodes of ice to cool his powers with. Blur didn’t seem too worried about helping them. “Do you want to take her out?” Chris asked as she made her way back to Sinkhole.

Blur turned to Chris and gave him a sideways look. “You mean like kill her? Hell no! I don’t kill people.” He said angrily, shoving the teleporter to the side. He moved to begin running towards her, but Chris teleported in front of him before he could move.

“No, I mean capture her. Something is obviously going on, more than just attacking a college campus for no reason. She’s relaying a message back and forth from Sinkhole to Pyron. That in itself is weird. We could find out what’s happening.” Even as he said the words he knew that Blur would never go for it. He had already said he fought only for the thrill, and interrogation wasn’t exactly the most thrilling thing in the world.

Yet, the young man stopped to think for a moment, looking Chris up and down like sizing up an opponent. He broke his gaze from Chris to look at the woman in purple, then looked back at Chris. “Sure. Why the hell not? I could do with something new.”

Then he was gone, racing down the small building and off towards the woman. Chris couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t expect that response, but he was happy with it all the same. He teleported behind her just as Blur sped in front of her. Together they attacked from both sides, catching her off guard and taking her down to the ground without much of a problem.

Chris pulled a zip tie from his pocket to tie her hands and feet, but she wasn’t finished with them yet. She had created a force field around her body after they took her down, and as they moved to bind her, she expanded the field to push them away. The field touched Blur once and he yelped in pain and shot back with a burst of speed 20 yards away. Chris teleported before the field touched him and couldn’t manage to teleport inside of the field to get to her, leaving him clueless as to how to get to her.

Blur appeared by his side after a short moment, clearly angry with the situation. It was weird already knowing that the other Neutral wanted nothing more than to take her out of the fight, but neither of them could do anything until the force field was down.

And finally it was gone, and Blur was next to her in the blink of an eye, but with a smile and a manic laugh the force field was up once more, but this time around the both of them. Behind the purple veil Chris could see Blur spinning around her, no doubt punching her from left and right, but they didn’t do anything to her, as she had covered herself in her own force field. Then the dome of energy began to shrink like it had when Chris was inside of it, but this time there was no way to stop her.

Blur was racing around the inside trying to find some way out of the dome, but wasn’t having any luck. Chris teleported just outside of the force field, trying to find a weakness in her power.

Then Blur stopped dead in his tracks to face the teleporter and his eyes were wide with horror. He pointed behind Chris, and as the teleporter turned without moving away, he saw Electron behind him with a grin on his face. “’Ello chap. Time to go!” He exclaimed before touching Chris’ chest and sending a surge of electricity through him. He tried to teleport away, but the electricity somehow kept him rooted in place. “We don’t like interference with our activities, do we Pyron?” The man turned to face the other villain, who wore a mean grin on his face.

“No. No we don’t. I think we should punish them. All four of them.” He turned around to show off the two heroes that had been fighting them before, chained up in a special device that would render them powerless while they were hooked up to it. “Let’s go show Ex what we caught, aye?” His rough voice turned dark at the mention of Ex, a name Chris had never heard before. It didn’t bode well that these two well-known and powerful villains were speaking of someone in charge of them. It meant someone more powerful than them.

When Chris turned to Blur to see his reaction, he saw that the force field had already been fitted to his body. With every movement the young man made, a jolt of pain would be sent through his body, to which he would move more to. Until he was put in something more stable, he would be in a world of unthinkable agony.

He looked back over to Electron and Pyron, and that was when a new villain appeared. A man with a face covered completely in the tattoo of a skull. His eyes were completely black, a bottomless pit that sucked up all understanding of super powered beings. He waved a hand, and Chris’ world went dark. He couldn’t hear, feel, see, taste, or smell anything, but he knew that he was moving. He was still conscious somehow, but the feeling of being absolutely disconnected from all of his senses was a kind of torture he didn’t think was possible.


	2. Chapter 2

There was all at once the feeling of being whole again. It hurt to have all of his senses back simultaneously. The overload of sensory detail shocked him into a pained daze; smells that bombarded his nostrils with the cleaning solvents, the smell of leather and the stink of sweat, the sharp feelings all over his body with what felt like needles, straps on his arms and legs, and a tingly feeling on his chest and inside of him. Opening his eyes was another painful venture. Bright lights washed over him from all sides, white and hot, but the most alarming light was the blue one that pulsed with the same beat of the tingly feeling on his chest and his insides.

After his vision finally adjusted to the light, he risked a glance down at his body. He was covered in white medical clothes as if he were in a hospital, and wires and needles patterned his body every few inches. One needle was hooked up to his wrist with a tube travelling all the way to a half full blood bag just out of reach of his hand, which was strapped down to the black leather hospital bed beneath him.

The most surprising thing of all was the machine that hovered over him just a foot above his body and painlessly piercing his skin with a long metal needle. He could see the light blue waves of electricity arching up and down the length of the needle that kept him from teleporting away. The light within him that usually pulsed in a steady beat was erratically flickering without rhythm, sending a shot of pain throughout his entire body whenever he tried to activate his power.

“Painful, isn’t it?” A voice murmured behind him. He heard someone rise from a leather seat and footsteps move closer. A face popped out from behind him to look overhead, a pale face with unbelievably blue eyes. Electron.

“Where am I?” Chris demanded, though the menace he meant to put into his voice was drowned out by the weak croaking from not speaking.

A hint of a smile flashed across the villain’s face as he stood upright and walked around to Chris’ side. “You’re exactly where we want you. Within our own labs. Testing you. Finding out what makes you tick. Then we’ll probably kill you, or harvest your power and do what we want with it, or both. Who knows?” He chuckled darkly and made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “We’ve almost got everything we need from you. Interestingly enough, it’s the blinking within you that’s been more used to us, not the blood. But just to make sure, we’ve taken as much as we need of that as well.”

Chris squirmed beneath his constraints which brought on a lengthy shock from the machine above him. He screamed out in pain as his body convulsed for the entire duration. When the pain subsided, he turned his head slowly to look at Electron. “Why are you doing this?” His voice was still weak, but stronger than before.

Before he could answer, a door out of his line of sight opened with a metallic slam and two pairs of footsteps walked in, the door slamming closed again behind them. Two more faces appeared in front of him at the foot of his bed. One he recognized as the man who had cut off his senses after the fight with the force field maker, and the other was as unfamiliar to him as it was frightening.

The owner of the unfamiliar face began to talk with an extremely riveting and bone-chilling robotic voice. “Unstrap him and take the machine off of him. We have all we need from him and he won’t be able to teleport away with the electricity siphoned from him.” The voice sent a shiver down Chris’ spine and seemed to have the same effect on the other two men, sending them to do what they were told without a word.

“Who are you?” Chris asked the cyborg, taking a daring chance at being direct.

The cyborg showed no surprise or interest in his act of being tough, but answered his question all the same. “I have been called many things over the years, but my fellow men and women here tend to call me Ex.”

“That’s short for Executioner.” Electron called out from behind.

He glanced over at Electron with a lazy mechanical eye while his real one stayed locked onto Chris. “Be careful with that, El. That’s expensive technology that took months to build.” Electron tensed at the cyborg speaking to him and immediately changed his posture so that he was hugging the machine close to his body to make sure he didn’t drop it.

With both eyes and his full attention back on the teleporter, the cyborg lifted both hands. Both were robotic. As he bent his fingers to show their functionality, the shiny metal shone in the bright light of the room on Chris’ face. “I am a cyborg on over 60% of my body. Both hands and an entire arm. Half of my face and even part of my brain, and an entire leg and a foot. Even some of my insides are robotic. Many have tried to kill me and as many have failed with the cost of their own lives.” The human half of his face turned upwards in a smile whilst the other half stayed still as stone.

“Why are you doing this?” Chris demanded since he didn’t get an answer from Electron. “Why are you taking my powers?”

Ex gave a sigh that sounded more like a vacuum expelling dust. “Let’s educate you on a few things, shall we? Out of the nearly eight billion people living on this earth, less than half a percent of them have super powers. Out of that half a percent, or about 36 million people, 400,000 of them have fire based powers. 500,000 of them have water or ice based powers. Two million have mind-based powers such as mind reading and controlling and telekinesis. Five million of them have speed, agility, or strength based powers. The rest have other sorts of powers. Teleportation is a little less rare than fire based powers, at 250,000, but electricity based teleportation powers? Only a small handful, and we just so happened to come across one.” Ex allowed a mechanical chuckle before he moved from the foot of the bed to Chris’ side.

He bent down, both of his eyes boring into him as if he were searching for something. “With your powers, we could travel the world in the blink of an eye. We might even begin to break into time travel. Perhaps we’ll discover new worlds and new universes, even new realities.” His eyes narrowed as his face inched closer until Chris could feel his breath, which was cold and smelled of iron. “You could open the door to something great. Or, you know, something awful and deadly.”

The cyborg began to pace around the leather bed with his arms behind his back, deep in thought. Chris sat up as the last strap was taken off of him. He knew he couldn’t make a move to attack anyone – he’d be defeated before he could even touch anyone. But it didn’t stop him from thinking about it. Perhaps too obviously. “As you think on how to kill us, I’ve been thinking on how to kill you… or if I even should. You know, Electron was in your position only a few years ago. His power to suck in matter like a vortex and expel it violently in an electrical explosion caught my eye rather quickly. I took his powers so that I could replicate them… but I gave them back all the same when he swore obedience.” The cyborg paused to look at the teleporter. “I could do the same for you. Teamed with Electron you two would be unstoppable.”

For a moment Chris entertained the idea. Not in the way Ex presented it… he would only join to then turn on the cyborg and kill or capture him. But it would take too long, and by that time Chris might have become accustomed to the villains. “I’d rather teleport into a volcano.” He responded instead, inciting a droning laugh from the cyborg.

“You might want to, but you won’t be doing any more teleporting for a while. I’ve left your powers intact, but you’re so drained you won’t even be able to activate them to absorb electricity to power them.” Ex laughed out loud with genuine humor. “Ironic how that works, isn’t it? You need to absorb the electricity to power yourself, but you have to be powered up to activate your electricity absorbing powers.” He wiped an invisible tear from his robotic eye as he continued to laugh before pivoting on a heel and moving for the door.

Chris turned to watch, expecting him to leave and someone else to enter and kill him, but he stopped before he crossed the doorway and turned around. “Oh yes, before I forget. Your friend, the really fast one, he’s in the room next to you. And Winter and Jericho in the same room on the other side of him. All their powers being harvested. If you join us I might spare them.” He didn’t skip a beat in turning around to exit without another word.

Alone in the room, Chris began to ponder what would become of him. He wasn’t joining, but he didn’t think they would kill him because of it either. Not right away at least. There were rumors of a fighting rink near the city, called The Supreme Rule. It was more like an underground fighting rink that everyone knew about. It wasn’t technically legal, but it was run by a teleporter that could teleport massive objects, one of those being the rink. People get invitations after becoming interested, and authority figures found in the rink are killed or teleported away before the rink has changed places again. It wouldn’t be a surprise to learn the villains controlled the rink, and could therefore give Chris to the rink.

There was also the chance that they would force him to join. There were people with mind control powers that could make you do anything. There were stories all over the world about people controlling others’ minds to make them do horrific things. The imagination could go on forever without thinking of everything one could do with that power. 

After a while of thinking, Chris grew tired of being in the blank room with no one to talk to and nothing to look at. The walls were of a blank white stone, the floor blank white tile, and the ceiling was just as blank and steel. The bed he was on was just as bleached as the walls, and all the machinery – even the chair Electron had been sitting in before – was gone.

He slid down from the bed and strode over to the door, his bare feet padding against the cold floor. A camera in the corner of the room caught his attention as it followed his movements. There was a window in the middle of the door just large enough to press his face against to see what was outside. He saw a nurse walk the length of the hallway towards his room. She noticed him looking out and raised a brow, then reached over and pulled a screen down over the window to block his curious eyes.

Annoyed, he went back to the leather bed in painful expectation for whatever would come next. His mind wandered to envision an excruciating execution by the cyborg Executioner. He thought of the heroes that had been captured along with him and wondered how they would die. Jericho and Winter would surely be killed publicly. They had to be made into examples – at least that’s how the villains usually chose to see it. Blur would probably be killed quietly, and dumped in a landfill same as Chris.

With these thoughts lingering in the back of his mind, the teleporter attempted to gather enough energy to teleport out of the room, reaching deep within himself to pull every ounce of energy he could. And when he began to gather enough, the pulse within him grew and flashed.

For several moments his vision swam and vertigo washed over him like a tsunami, but before long he straightened up and could see the figure in front of him and the details of his surroundings.

In front of him was the villain in the black robes and skull tattoo. He hadn’t realized it before, but now that he was face to face with the man, he realized that his eyes were an intense hazel. He turned to look around him, only to find he was still in the same room, laying on the floor two feet away from the leather bed. He let out a shocked whimper when the villain grasped him by the arms and lifted him to his feet but kept his hands in place so Chris wouldn’t fall.

“We must get you out this instant.” He said with an impossibly deep voice. “We don’t have much time, especially considering ghosting with you will take much of my power. Can you walk?”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He loosened his grip from Chris’ arms to see how the teleporter would fare, only to find the trial a swift failure. He caught the young man before he could fall and hoisted him onto his shoulders. “There will be guards at every corner. I just hope none of them is a mind reader.” He muttered to himself before further pushing the door open with a boot and walking out of the room.

A guard stopped him before he even got a foot out the door. Chris could feel the villain lurch to a stop as the guard confronted them. “What are you doing with this prisoner, Rev?” The guard demanded. In an instant the air around them grew blisteringly hot, and when the teleporter opened his eyes he saw the guard’s hands turn into a stainless metal and grow bright red with heat.

“Ex asked for the prisoner to be brought to him, so we could kill him and dispose of him. He said nothing about the guard’s head who interfered with his instructions, but I suppose a cherry on top of the sundae is all the better, don’t you think?” He all but snarled in reply, to which the guard quickly stepped to the side, his hands reverting back to normal.

Rev gave a grunt of approval and continued onwards, and from there on they weren’t bothered. Chris was positioned in a way that he could only see the ground and whatever was behind him and immediately in front of him. He saw the stone walls fade away and become bedrock and iron, the ground beneath them shift from stone tile, to concrete, and then to the earth, where a track extended all the way to where the teleporter assumed was the end of the cave.

They followed the tracks all the way to the end, passing many thick metal doors on the way. Some of them were opened to reveal empty rooms, but most of them were closed. Small windows allowed for him to see flickering lights or blood spattered walls. Just a few feet away from the end of the tracks Chris heard two clicks. Rev tensed underneath him and came to an abrupt stop.

“I thought you knew better than this, Rev.” A familiar mechanical voice said from the end of the tracks. “I trained you from youth. I gave you the best life a villain could ask for. And this is how you repay me? I’ll be glad enough to kill you myself for this.” The teleporter heard the cyborg step forward and then a blade being unsheathed. “Take him down.”

With that command, the rails of the tracks beneath them began to lift from their settings and snake around Rev’s legs. They tightened once they reached the middle of his thigh before angling away and then striking. The metal went straight through his legs, but Chris saw no blood. He narrowed his eyes for a closer look to find that Rev was moving through the rails. Small wisps of black smoke trailed behind the man, never drifting far. With a grunt he pressed forward towards Ex and the two that were next to him – one that was controlling the rails, the other holding his hand out towards Rev and the teleporter.

“Can’t you do any better?!” Ex growled at the villain to his side that was holding his hand up. The villain responded by raising the other hand at Rev and his face contorted into a look of deep concentration and discomfort.

The smoke that had been billowing lightly around Rev’s body began to dissipate and the metal rails came at him again, this time truly piercing his legs. Blood trickled down the metal as he continued to press ever closer to the three ahead of them. Chris could see that the villain with his hands outstretched was breathing heavier, and his arms were drooping ever so slightly. Sweat glistened on his face as if he had just got done with a marathon.

As Ex realized his side-kick was becoming weaker, he stepped forward and raised the blade extending several inches from his robotic wrist. As he brought the blade down to strike at Rev, Chris could feel his body becoming lighter. His head felt like he had inhaled a gallon of helium, and as he turned to watch the blade come down to end the two of them, he saw and even felt the blade pass right through them.

The next few moments were a blur after feeling the blade pass through his body without harming him. His head felt like he had been spinning in place for an hour and when he finally regained all of his senses he saw a woman behind the three villains trying to stop Chris and Rev’s escape. Chris could see her eyes glowing a bright blue and her hand was outstretched towards the man controlling the metal rails. For a second nothing happened, but then the teleporter could see the man’s eyes begin to glow with the same blue light.

Then he turned towards Ex and the cyborg was thrown across the mouth of the cave, his body pinned against the far wall. An instant later the rails were snaking away from Rev’s legs towards the other man, still sweating and extending his hands towards Rev. As he realized what was happening, he turned so his hands faced his accomplice but it was too late. The rails had impaled the villain’s body through the chest and had twisted around to return to strike again just above where they had gone in the first time. After he breathed his last breath, he was thrown with the metal rails still inside of him next to Ex.

The woman smiled before her eyes flashed and the last villain dropped heavily, his eyes wide and still pulsing with a soft blue light. “Come on, Rev. I shut down Mr. Roboto for a few moments, but I’m sure he has a way to turn his electronics back on. We need to move before the extraction.” She told him, her voice quick and heavy with a French accent.

Rev began to move without a second thought, following the French woman out into the open air, a thick line of trees standing ahead of them. As the trio moved, Chris looked up to find that it was dark out, the moon full and shining silver in the sky just above the mouth of the cave. His mind began to wander to the others that were captured with him and remembered what Ex had said about killing them. He began to squirm underneath Rev’s arms until an explosion from within the cave shocked him into stillness again. His mind was immediately filled with thoughts of their deaths and he began to weep for their loss.

The French woman turned around at hearing Chris crying and crouched down next to Rev so he could see her face. She was beautiful, her brown skin all but glistening in the moonlight and her blue eyes strikingly bright despite the darkness. Without saying a word she had calmed him, but spoke to soothe his thoughts anyway. “The heroes Winter and Jericho are inside, along with a Neutral name Darius. They were captured with you, as I’m sure you’re aware. Do not fear, though. They are being rescued. That explosion was the signal for an extraction team of heroes to rescue them. You’ll all be safe soon.”

He nodded his head in reply and wiped a tear off by rubbing his face against Rev’s black robes. Then he turned back to face the French woman again to find her eyes glowing blue like they had when the villain controlling the rails turned on his partners. “Sleep now, child.” She said, with a voice soft as silk. Her words echoed in his head, the French accent sending a shiver down his spine. He closed his eyes and found himself lost to the world in deep sleep.


End file.
